Ian Ference

The American Insane Asylum: Stigma and Misconceptions

Video Description:

Ian Ference takes us on a journey of exploration in a tale of his studies of abandoned insane asylums, tubercular sanatoriums, and quarantine hospitals. He focuses on the interplay between the institutions he examines and the social contexts in which they were built, functioned, and rendered derelict.

Ian Ference is an internationally recognized photographer, researcher, lecturer, and writer on historically significant abandoned structures in America, focusing on "total institutions" having visited hundreds of sites in his 20+ years of field experience. Ference has been published in hundreds of books, periodicals, and blogs on six continents; featured in dozens of documentaries, radio shows, podcasts, television programs, and live panels. His first publication, "Buffalo State Hospital: A History of the Institution in Light and Shadow", was released in July 2016.